QQ106-107. What do we pray for in the sixth petition and what does the conclusion to the Prayer teach us?

A (108). In the sixth petition, which is, And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” we pray, that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted.

A (107). The conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, which is, For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen,” teacheth us to take our encouragement in prayer from God only, and in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to him; and in testimony of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say, Amen.

In each of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, there has been a theological difficulty of one sort or another. The sixth petition will be no different; and then with the conclusion to the Prayer, there is a difficulty of another sort—that is, a textual difficulty, easily resolved and still confirming the truth of Scripture concerning the grace of prayer.

Lead Not into Temptation

Why would we pray, “And lead us not into temptation” (Mat. 6:12a)? We can see easily enough what the theological problem would be with this. What we will see here is that temptation proper is not the work of God. First, we distinguish between (a) tempting and (b) leading into temptation. The crucial verse in this regard comes from James: 

“Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (Jas. 1:13). 

By TEMPTATION PROPER, here, I mean the allure of sin itself. Not that God does not still ordain all things, and therefore all arenas in which temptation strikes. Was it not the case that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Mat. 4:1). It was not the Spirit that tempted, but the Gospel writer saw fit to use the word “lead,” which is that same word used here in this prayer: that we not be led. So how do we further distinguish?

It is that God tests us, but does not tempt us. So what is the difference? In his classic on Temptation, the Puritan John Owen writes, “The word for temptation is used in two ways in the New Testament: (1) In general, to test, or to prove. Thus God is said to test, and we are commanded as our duty to test, try, or search ourselves to know what is in us, and to pray that God would also do so … (2) Secondly, testing in the negative sense is to seek to lead the soul into evil. Thus,” Owen says, “temptation is like a knife. It may be useful to cut the meat, or to cut the throat of a man. It may be a man’s food or his poison, his exercise or his destruction.”1 In short the difference is between the commending of the sin versus the overcoming of its seduction. So Watson concludes that the meaning of this petition is, 

“that God would not suffer us to be overcome by temptation: that we may not be given up to the power of temptation, and be drawn into sin.”2

But if God would occasionally test us, why should we pray this petition? Consider as an analogy why we would pray to not become sick or destitute or that a loved one dies. And yet each of these present to us suffering that God uses to mold and shape us. For all of that, we are never told to ask God to strike us with disease, nor for our employer to become our enemy, nor to kill our family. So, in the same way, we can balance this truth: that God will sanctify us through temptations, but that (since the sin is never commended) we would not have him lead us “into” temptation.

Temptation is from the enemy without, to the enemy within. We have the nearest enemy in our own members. That same passage in James continues: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (Jas. 1:14-15). The fact of the matter is that we have more than enough evil in us, to where if the devil never tempted us from without, our indwelling sin would tempt us from within. We need divine strength here because of human weakness. Jesus says,

“Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41).

God the Holy Spirit is already the First Answer to this prayer. And the Holy Spirit lives to make war against the world, the flesh, and the devil, starting with the flesh: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh” (Gal. 5:17). Think about this for a moment. One with omnipotent desires lives in you. If you are in Christ, the Spirit of omnipotent desire lives in you. You may say, “Yes, but his person is distinct from my person, and so his desires are distinct from my desires.” That is true. But the story doesn’t end there for Paul. Directly following those words in Galatians 5 comes the fruit of the Spirit.

Deliver Us from Evil

Now I said that we have more than enough evil in us, to where if the devil never tempted us from without, our indwelling sin would tempt us from within. And yet Peter also says it in the imperative, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). That is because there are three in an unholy alliance, THE DEVIL, THE WORLD, AND OUR OWN FLESH.

So Jesus prays, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (Jn. 17:15). That is why this petition, which is so brief, is also so comprehensive—not only from temptation; “but deliver us from evil” (Mat. 6:12b).

It belongs to the gospel that Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). We need to be delivered from an evil that fills this world, that characterizes this age. Such an evil is the air we breathe. And as this life presses in on us, and becomes the occasions for many heartbreaking losses, we will feel more intensely a holy hatred for the evil of Babylon. It rises to such an extreme in David that he could say,

“Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies” (Ps. 139:21-22).

It’s one of those problem passages that ceases to be a problem at all when that evil engulfs your loved ones. So “deliver us” from evil is also a prayer for those we care about the most. 

In both the temptation to sin and the evil that surrounds and assails us, we must ask: What is the greater evil? In other words, is it more harmful to my soul and injurious to the cause of Christ that this momentary affliction occur, or even that this protracted evil occur—or, would an even greater evil spring up in my heart or in the hearts of those around me, if all that remained, with the evil gone, is a worldly peace and a carnal comfort? Since we cannot know the specifics of such an answer, we must entrust to God alone our subjection to those evils which are lesser and instrumental, and the removal of those evils that He knows are the greater. So Paul concluded about his thorn:

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Cor. 12:7-9).

How Prayer is Grounded in the End

As we all know, this second part of verse 13 is in the King James Version but not in those more modern English translations that worked off of the scholarship of Wescott and Hort. And yet the words have Scriptural foundation, as they appear in 1 Chronicles 29:11. Witsius defends its genuineness against the denials of Erasmus and Grotius. Three basic arguments against it were: (1) it was absent from the most ancient Greek MSS, as Beza recognized, though Witsius adds that this is not the case of the “approved” MSS; (2) It is absent from Luke 11 in the parallel Lord’s Prayer; and (3) It is not cited by Tertullian, Cyprian, or Augustine [though it is by Chrysostom and other ancient Greeks], each of whom quoted much from the prayer.3

These three expressions attributed to God—KINGDOM, POWER, GLORY—ground right prayer because the realities behind them ground right prayer. Praying to a King with an infinite kingdom is access to absolute power. Here Ursinus speaks about “the duty of a king which is to hear, defend and preserve his subjects.”4 To confess that the whole of the kingdom, which is all things, belongs to God is to know the main thing we should ever want to know. Job knew but did not know. Job was called a righteous man, but he had been knocked down to the bottom. So he cries,

“Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat! I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments” (Job 23:3-4).

Job had plenty of things to say. He knew how to pray. And he even said that he knew that his Redeemer lives, and that he would one day see him (19:25). But on that side of the cross, he was on the downside of the kingdom. He saw the promises from afar. If we know the way of access into the King’s throne room, we have no excuse not to fill our mouths with petitions.

But secondly there is how divine power grounds right prayer. It is to know that “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials” (2 Pet. 2:9). The greatest preacher of the early church, John Chrysostom, said of these words, following directly after that sixth petition as they do: 

“After having roused us to the struggle by the consideration of the enemy, and, entirely removed every apology for slothfulness, he again confirms and strengthens our mind by reminding us of the King, whom we faithfully serve, and by showing that he is more powerful than all.”5

This induces the prayer warrior to confidence. We forget, because of those who have abused prayer, that prayer is a divinely given power. So Paul makes prayer last in a perfecting and summary way in Ephesians 6, when he has unpacked the whole armor of God. Matthew Henry says about this that, [Prayer] “is that which buckles on all the Christian’s armor.”6

Finally the glory of God grounds right prayer. We see this in Jesus’ own prayer for us, as His basic prayer behind all the others was: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (Jn. 17:24). God’s glory is the end goal of Christian prayer. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory” (Ps. 115:1). You see the problem with anyone who thinks that prayer doesn’t work is basically a glory problem. More often than not, we are praying for the wrong glory. Henry puts it in this way, 

“Let not self, carnal self, be the spring and center of your prayers, but God; let the eye of the soul be fixed upon him as your highest end in all your applications to him; let him be the habitual disposition of your souls, [for you] to be to your God [a] name and a praise; and let this be your design in all your desires, that God may be glorified, and by this let them all be directed, determined, sanctified, and, when need is, overruled.”7

Question 129 of the Heidelberg Catechism asks, “What is the meaning of the word Amen?” “Amen means: So shall it truly and surely be. For my prayer is much more certainly heard of God, than I feel in my heart that I desire these things of Him.” To say Amen is to say “it is true.” It is the Aramaic word that … In the Latin, “truth” (veritas) has an adjective that comes down to our English as “Verily,” and so where our current Bibles have Jesus saying “Truly, truly,” you will recall that the old King James expressed the same as “Verily, verily.” Paul says, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (2 Cor. 1:20).

To say Amen is to confess the Giver of the prayer as truth Himself: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13). God would not have us waste our words only to wonder if he is true and faithful for it. One old devotional book on prayer puts it in this way: “The promises of God are letters of credit, drawn on the bank of heaven, to be honored at sight … the promises of God are all witnessed to be the eternal verity, and are countersigned in the blood of the cross.”8 

PRACTICAL USE OF THIS DOCTRINE

Use 1. Actively fighting temptation consistent with our prayer. We cannot use temptation as a reason to blame God or excuse ourselves. Now, we have already seen that from James 1, namely, that God cannot be blamed as the tempter. But we are also tempted to blame him for our own circumstances and our own nature. Another classic passage, and one that is often taken out of context is where Paul says, 

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Let us not forget how this prayer gets started: OUR FATHER. Think of how earthly fathers watch over their children as they grow. In that maturing process, there are many new arenas that the father must introduce the children to, and each one of them comes with temptations peculiar to that stage of development. Has the father utterly abandoned such a child? Not if he is a good father.

Use 2. Fighting begins with a watching. This follows from that primary rule of warfare, to know your enemy. Watson speaks of six “seasons” where the devil finds it most fitting to tempt. So make it your business to set a watch over these seasons:

First, “in our first initiation and entrance into religion.” This is just like Bunyan’s pilgrim getting the blast of the enemy’s arrows right at the entrance to the Wicket Gate. The devil specializes in picking off any who might appear to be in the process of turning to Christ. So the devil has many temptations for the path of a young Christian, as a young Christian can do the devil the most harm. 

Second, “The devil tempts when he finds us unemployed.” Here Watson means out of employment in the kingdom. And this is extremely relevant in our day when the enemies of Christ would use both virus and government ordinances that are beyond our reach, to keep the churches empty and God’s people scattered. The disembodied and unemployed saint is low-lying fruit to Satan’s harvest.

Third, “When a person is reduced to outward wants and straits, the devil tempts him.” We already saw this with our daily bread. 

Fourth, “Satan tempts after an ordinance,” which causes Watson to anticipate the question: How is that? We ought to be at our strongest after having received from God’s means of grace. Yes, but, remember, Watson points out, Satan tempted Jesus after his fasting and praying, and the reason is nothing other than that “Malice puts Satan upon it. The ordinances, which cause fervor in a saint, cause fury in Satan.” But also, “Satan tempts after an ordinance, because he thinks he will find us more secure. After we have been at the solemn worship of God, we are apt to grow remiss, and leave off former strictness; like a soldier, who, after the battle, leaves off is armor.”

Fifth, “Satan tempts after some discoveries of God’s love. Like a pirate who sets on a ship that is richly laden, when a soul has been laden with spiritual comforts, the devil shoots at him to rob him of all. He envies a soul feasted with spiritual joy.”

Sixth, “Satan tempts when he sees us weakest. He breaks over the hedge where it is lowest; as the sons of Jacob came upon the Shechemites when they were sore, and could make no resistance.” Watson highlights the examples of when we are alone and when we are near death. But often, spiritual loneliness and spiritual languishing are forced and entirely avoidable. So let us keep watch over what we pray here.9

Use 3. One last reconciliation of our prayers with who God is. Ursinus has a section to close his lectures on the Catechism on why we bring petitions to God when he is unchangeable. It is worth reading the core of his answer:

“We do not use arguments that we may move and influence God, or persuade him to do what we ask; but that we ourselves may be persuaded that God will do this—that we may be assured of being heard, and acknowledge our necessity, and the goodness and truth of God. These arguments are, therefore, not added to our prayers for the purpose of moving and influencing God; but merely to confirm and assure us, that God will do what we desire and pray for. These now are the reasons on account of which he does it: You are the best king. Therefore you will give to your subjects what is necessary and tends to their salvation. You are most powerful. Therefore you will show your power in giving these greatest of all gifts, which can be given by no one, beside you. It shall contribute to thy glory. Therefore you will do it: because you have a regard to your glory.”10

The Bible supports this: “Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear” (Is. 65:24).

______________________

1. John Owen, Temptation (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2007), 3.

2. Watson, The Lord’s Prayer, 258.

3. Witsius, The Lord’s Prayer, 371.

4. Ursinus, Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism, 1160.

5. John Chrysostom, quoted in Witsius, The Lord’s Prayer, 374.

6. Henry, quoted in Beeke & Jones, Puritan Theology, 878.

7. Henry, quoted in Beeke & Jones, Puritan Theology, 879.

8. David McIntyre, The Hidden Life of Prayer (Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus Publications, 2010), 93.

9. Watson, The Lord’s Prayer, 262-64.

10. Ursinus, Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism, 1161.